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Archive for January, 2010

January 23, 2010

Jeanne pulled of a surprise wedding and few of the Michigan alumni board members were invited to celebrate with her and her husband at their new home in the east bay.  I haven’t been to the east bay in a while so it was nice to be out in the ‘country’ away from the noise of the city.  Her home was especially away from any city and in the middle of the forest.  To me, it looked like a house out of a movie with floor to ceiling glass walls on a hill overlooking a forest.  To boot, they had an awesome game room downstairs and even a bocce ball court!

A very pretty house!

Bocce ball!

Thanks again for the invite! Wishing you guys years of health, wealth, happiness, fertility & longevity ^_____^!

January 21, 2010

The weather this pas week has been a crazy mess… starting with the ridiculously loud thunder on Monday night to all the crazy rain all throughout the week.  I heard on the radio on Wednesday morning that there were 600 incidents in the SF bay area from midnight to 8am, including 200 between 6-8am.  They said the worst part of getting into an accident was that nobody would get to you for an hour or more because the police were so understaffed.  I also heard the weather guy say ‘el nino is here!!’ about 20 times a DAY…

However, the rain god gave way for brief sunlight on my way home today… then it started raining again, but I a glimpse of this crazy rainbow!!

If anybody cares, today’s date is another palindrome! 012210!

A huge rainbow caught be completely off guard coming home from work.  It really looked like the rainbow was coming out of IKEA!

There were crazy clouds all around me, but I must admit, they were pretty amazing to look at.  And yes, I almost died several times trying to take these pictures while driving.

January 15-18, 2010

I drove down to LA this weekend to take advantage of the long MLK weekend and since I didn’t go home for Christmas or New Years.  James decided to fly into LA last minute and it made the weekend that much better.  Then I found others were visiting, it was also Amber’s birthday… and it ended up being a big old Michigan reunion.  I guess half of the Michiganders in the group now live in LA… but it was a big reunion nevertheless.  I must say, SF has grown on me and I call it home, but it was nice to be around familiar faces from back home.  I guess it really is the people that makes home, well, home!

Trip begins! 6 hours, almost 400 miles to destination.  I must say, the drive there alone was long, but the drive back was really, REALLY LONG.  I shall never do that alone, ever again.

Almost forgot about LA traffic… almost.

I basically went straight from SF to Amber’s birthday dinner.  Happy Birthday Amber!!!

James immediately started fitting in to LA

I’m not much of a brunch person, but this place was goooood~ grub!

Sake House, where we had the Michigan reunion

Gaam after dinner on Saturday night

Epic NRB night…

I made these awesome fruit shots!  Soon after…

Me: Should we order another bottle?

James: Naw, I think we’re good

Me: Okay, let’s get another one

Let’s never order two bottles at NRB ever again… (at least we got free beer?)

And I leave you with this video… Aaron suggested walking over to a I <3 Boba after dinner… but it wasn’t as nearly close as he claimed… and it was raining.  In response to James’ and my complaining, he said that these are memories you remember and added…

January 13, 2010

Seriously, there’s an island in San Francisco called Treasure Island (TI).  It’s located right in the middle (or right around there) of the Bay Bridge between SF and the East Bay.  It used to be a Navy base but was recently sold to the city of SF and there are grand plans for development.  Although, after today’s visit I think they’ll have some major infrastructure issues.  Anyway… I’ve crossed the bridge dozens of times but this was the first time actually stopping by.

There is a Fed funded program on the island called Job Corps (pronounced “cors”, figure that?!) where students receive career training.  The one located on TI happens to be recognized for their advanced culinary program and it draws kids from across the nation.  I went to speak about financial planning topics to seniors who will soon graduate.  I find it easy to respect kids who work hard to reach their goals, especially when they’re doing it on their own.  I’m glad I got an opportunity to help these kids reach their goals and hopefully set them up for financial success!

That being said… I actually didn’t present anything because the topic before mine took the whole hour, but I’ll be back in a month or two for session 2 :)

If you haven’t been to TI yet, I highly recommend it!  If you go from SF, you exit halfway on the bridge so you never pay toll!!

Great view of the city

I love palm trees, and bridges, oh look! palm trees and…

So they ARE building a new bridge!  Ever since they found a crack… and then one of the cables snapped… all I can wonder is what could be next?

Beautiful city views from the bridge…

…to Coit tower!

BTW… I saw two HUGE raccoons in the parking lot!  Then I wondered… how’d they get all the way to the island?

January 7, 2010

Aimee visited SF again on her way to Korea this time.  It was another short visit so a quick dinner was all we could fit in as a group.  We headed to a restaurant called Firefly, and as usual it was good times catching up with everybody.

Firefly!  The jar was also for sale for $25.. $25! I’d think about for $1

The group!

Appetizers and meals; both appetizers were delicious, the meals were just so so.

They had a good prix fixe menu/deal so I had an appetizer, meal AND dessert.  I am a pig.

How clever

January 2, 2010

Yes, there was a sale at Ikea and the drawers I wanted was half off today.  I had a feeling they wouldn’t last very long, so I woke up early and got to Ikea just as they opened.  I unknowingly sneaked through the back… because apparently there was a huge line of people being patrolled by Ikea employees.  I somehow ended up going around the whole line and picking up the prized furniture of the day with no wait!  Muhaha!  Yes, this made me very happy.  I quickly checked out, stored it in my car, and went back in to take advantage of their free breakfast (the breakfast wasn’t anything special, but who cares?  It’s free!) and do some more shopping.

Having got what I came for and full from the free breakfast, I was very satisfied!  The drawers sold out about an hour after Ikea opened… also, is the map above actually supposed to help you find your way around the store?

We ate lunch at Santa Ramen down in San Mateo.  The ramen specialty house was almost as good as rumored.  The very hearty soup base was a bit too salty, and the lines were super long… but still good enough to go back.

I had the pork flavored ramen… with pork.  What’s with the pork on pork for me this week?

Next I wanted some plants at work/home, so we stopped by Flora Grubb near my house.  This place was really cool, with a garden full of exotic plants and even a cafe inside.

this old car was transformed into a garden… kind of…

my new pets!  hopefully they don’t die…

December 31, 2009

I spent NYE in LA the past two years so I decided to stick around SF and spend the first hours of 2010 here.  Rather than going out to a crowded NYE dinner, a few of us thought it would be a good idea to cook at home.  Seeing the ridiculous crowd at Safeway, I think it was the right call.  All I know how to cook is katsu and curry, so the menu for today was katsu curry.  Will and Andrew prepared a vegetable dish with string beans and SG prepared a side dish with Asian zucchini and Korean sweat potatoes.

prepping

in my opinion, wine is best while cooking…

SG’s vegetable dish!

delicious!

We had some extra bacon and since bacon can’t be wasted under any circumstances, we wrapped it around a couple of our katsu.  I was afraid the bacon flavor would be overpowering, but it actually turned out… perfect.  pork wrapped in pork, bacon pork katsu… delicious

happy new year!

no pictures from the party @ Union Square, but the best part about NYE in SF was free public transportation!  Cabs were impossible to catch, driving was sacrificed for alcohol… hence Caltrain running late was a real plus!

New Years day was a fairly lazy and relaxing day.  I made sure I made the new years calls to the parents and other family, and once that was out of the way there was really nothing much to do.  The same group from dinner on NYE went out to catch a late showing of “Sherlock Holmes” and as expected, the theater was super crowded.  In fact, I got to the theater about 10 minutes late and the theater was so crowded, we had to exchange our tickets for the next showing.

the 9pm showing eventually got packed as well

The movie was good, I think?!  The combination of the British accent and fast talk was a recipe for disaster.  I think I understood about 70% of the movie, which is really sad.  Fortunately, the movie wasn’t too hard to follow.

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